Recently, I was on a call with some younger leaders at a company, and a lot of the conversation centered around how to be successful in your 20s, what roadblocks you might hit and how to find a mentor.

We spent a lot of time talking about mentoring and coaching because it is a big part of what makes people successful.

But how do you find a mentor? How do you walk through that process?

We often put a lot of pressure on those relationships, which hangs us up sometimes and keeps us from finding the help we need.

The best mentoring relationships have three things in common:

1. They are intentional but organic.
2. They are relational.
3. Growth happens through conversations, not necessarily a curriculum.

While you will sometimes ask a mentor to walk with you, sometimes it will just happen.

They are relational, which means it should be someone you naturally connect with, and they connect with you. If that doesn’t exist, you will not get all of what you could out of the relationship, and one or both of you will end up frustrated.

While you can sometimes go through a curriculum, the best mentoring happens naturally through conversations. When you have them, come prepared with questions, put your phone away and take lots of notes.

Before getting to how to find one, let me give you a caution I’ve learned over the years: A mentor is someone further ahead of you in an area you want to grow in.

No one person can mentor you in every part of your life.

This is the problem we run into. We look for someone to be the end-all, be-all for us.

When someone asks for a mentor, I explain this to them and then ask a series of questions:

What are one or two areas you want to grow in as you think about your life in the next 3, 6, or 12 months? This could be finances, prayer, marriage, boundaries, health, etc.

Why do you think I can help you? I want to know why they think I can help them. Not because I want to pump up my ego, but I want to know they’ve done their homework on me and didn’t just throw a dart at the wall and pick the closest person.

What are you doing, or have you tried to grow in this area? Often, not always, but often people seek a mentor because they are lazy. I want to know what books or blogs this person has looked at in this area. Are they actively seeking to grow in this area or just hoping to rub off on the success from someone? This leads to the last part.

How much time are you willing to put into this? Anything worth doing will take time. You won’t grow in handling finances, health, marriage, career, preaching, etc., without putting in time and effort. This is a commitment you, as the person getting mentored, make. The mentor is coming along for the ride, and if I, as the mentor, am not convinced you are into the ride, I’m getting off.

If you are worth your salt as a leader, person, or pastor, you will often be asked to mentor people. You must be selective about who you mentor because you are giving up one of your most precious commodities, your time. If you are asking to be mentored, to succeed and have it worthwhile, you need to do your homework and be willing to put in the work. There is nothing more exciting than working with someone who wants to grow in an area and helping them do that.

We can’t become the person we are to become without relationships with older, more mature people in our lives.